Yesterday, reports broke that Ryan White would miss Philly’s training camp while recovering from pectoralis surgery. While not a huge story — no offense to Ryan White, but he’s Ryan White — it did underscore the remarkable depth the Flyers have down the middle.

Once healthy, White will be battling the likes of Scott Laughton, Chris VandeVelde, Blair Jones and Nick Cousins for whatever minutes are left at center behind the big four of Claude Giroux, Brayden Schenn, Sean Couturier and Vincent Lecavalier.

With training camp set to open next week, Lecavalier is still waiting to see what the new normal will be. Will the Flyers keep him at center, where he played his entire career? Will they try to let 23-year-old Brayden Schenn flourish in the middle instead and ask Lecavalier to get more comfortable at left wing?

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Lecavalier said. “I guess we’ll see what happens the first day of training camp.”

Moving the 34-year-old veteran to the outside full-time might work out for all parties involved. As mentioned, the Flyers moved Lecavalier around plenty last season, including time at LW (which Lecavalier acknowledged he’d never played before) and an ill-fated stint as a fourth-line center (which neither Lecavalier or Flyers coach Craig Berube seemed to think worked.)

But Lecavalier’s game is predicated on offense and making plays, and a full-time move to the left side — where Matt Read, Michael Raffl and R.J. Umberger currently top the depth chart — could provide more consistent opportunities to generate offense.

Moving Lecavalier away from center could also benefit Philly’s two brightest young stars, Schenn and Couturier. GM Ron Hextall’s already on record saying the club wants more offensively from Couturier this season, which probably means a bit more time on the power play (Couturier finished 12th on the team in PPG TOI last year, averaging 1:16 per game.)

Schenn, meanwhile, has also flip-flopped between center and wing, but said midway through last season he’s “real comfortable” playing down the middle.

Another youngster that might benefit from the move? Laughton, who’s looking to crack the roster this year and could be a nice energy guy in a fourth-line center role. Though he does have offensive ability — evident by his 40 goals in 54 games with OHL Oshawa last season — Laughton’s best chance of sticking with the big club might be to crash and bang.

2. Quantity generally beats out quality in many cases, so players who logged 70+ games have a much better chance than someone who was injured but faced tough assignments when healthy.

3. By no means is this a comprehensive list and this isn’t meant to judge subjective things like “effort.” It’s mainly based on how a player was deployed. In other words, team styles and coaching in general made a big impact.

Since the start of the 2011-12 season with Kopitar on the ice at even-strength, the Kings have attempted 60 percent of the shot attempts (the third best mark in the NHL, behind only Kopitar’s teammate Justin Williams and Bergeron) and scored more than 61 percent of the goals. He’s also averaged more than two minutes of shorthanded ice-time per game over that stretch (tops among Kings forwards) and has 53 power play points.

Sean Couturier

Much like overall shorthanded time leader Braydon Coburn, playing for the league’s most penalized team probably inflates Philadelphia Flyers center Sean Couturier’s PK numbers … but they still tower above other forwards expected to chip in at least some offense (sorry Manny Malhotra). Couturier’s only competition in total penalty killing time among forwards was Jay McClement, but Couturier logged more than four minutes of total ice time per game than the former Toronto Maple Leafs defensive specialist, giving him more all-around duties.

(Flyers fans are justified in smiling at the fact that his cap hit will only be $1.75 million for the next two seasons.)

Tomas Plekanec

It’s tempting to place Patrice Bergeron here being that he’s arguably the best two-way forward in the NHL (with a handful of others making a strong argument). Just look at this chart, which is one way of showing much opposing shooters struggle to score when Bergeron’s on the ice:

Now just for reference – here is Patrice Bergeron – best defensive C in the NHL – look at all that BLUE! pic.twitter.com/yAUCztEgsi

So consider that a mention of sorts, but the Boston Bruins probably share the defensive burden better than most (Bergeron averaged just under two minutes of shorthanded time per game, a healthy but not outrageous average). One might look to Boston’s hated rivals in Montreal for a guy who carries a remarkable workload for a quality scorer.

While Erik Karlsson carries a staggering amount of offensive responsibilities in Ottawa, there are plenty of forwards who are expected to score on a nightly basis. Sidney Crosby was involved in 42.9 percent of the Pittsburgh Penguins 242 goals while Claude Giroux (36.9 of Philadelphia’s tallies) and Ryan Getzlaf (33 percent of Anaheim Ducks’ 263 goals) weren’t far behind. Getzlaf boasted one of the better alternate Hart arguments when you consider his 2:07 shorthanded time per game combined with his second-best scoring output.

Semyon Varlamov

It’s easy to see why the Colorado Avalanche’s No. 1 goalie pushed Tuukka Rask in the Vezina voting, as Varlamov was crucial to his team’s surprising season.

Varlamov easily topped all goalies in save attempts (2,013) and saves (1,867) as Kari Lehtonen came in distant second with 1,888 attempts and 1,735 saves. Varlamov’s 63 games played wasn’t short of the largest workload, finishing just two contests behind Lehtonen. All things considered, it’s really impressive that Varlamov topped all goalies with 41 wins while generating an impressive .927 save percentage.

With a nod to Ryan Miller absorbing buckets of shots in Buffalo, it’s hard to make an argument for any goalie’s job being tougher than Varlamov’s last season. Should the Avs be worried about the goaltending equivalent of the NFL running back “Curse of 370,” then?

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Maybe even more than the defensemen list, omissions are likely here in part for space reasons (Ryan Kesler’s an honorable mention, for one). Feel free to add some names to consider in the comments, then.

When the Flyers traded Scott Hartnell to the Columbus Blue Jackets, it left a gaping hole on the left wing on their top line. While Philly got R.J. Umberger back in return, the question left to ponder is just who will slide in on the left side of Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek?